I Was Me, But Now He's Gone
by Ruthibobs
Summary: Combeferre and Joly are paramedics at the local hospital. After a particularly rowdy and competitive couple of football matches one afternoon, they go on some calls they'll never forget.


**A/N: This was difficult to write, but simply would not go away.**

**May not be completely accurate as to what happens when you call 999, as I've been lucky enough to never have to, but oh well. Creative license people.**

**Title is from Metallica's "Fade to Black".**

* * *

Combeferre sighed as he entered the hospital staff room, smiling tiredly at Joly who was chatting to a nurse. Hanging his coat up, Combeferre flopped into the nearest chair, letting his eyes slide shut.

"You're not allowed to be this tired when your shift hasn't even started," Joly commented as the nurse left, sitting down in the seat next to his friend. "How's Eponine?"

"Take some advice, stick with Bossuet," Combeferre mumbled, not bothering opening his eyes. "Pregnant women are impossible. She's not sleeping because Bump is kicking constantly, so naturally I'm not getting to sleep either." Grantaire's nickname for Combeferre and Eponine's unborn child had first been jokingly suggested when Eponine woke up one morning to find she'd grown two dress sizes overnight, and had quickly been adopted until all of their friends used it constantly.

"Only a month left," Joly said sympathetically, patting Combeferre's shoulder. "I'll get you a strong coffee, because you're going to need to be awake in..." He checked his watch. "Ten minutes. It's going to be a long one, there's two football matches on, and none of the four teams playing like each other. There's already been three injuries called in."

"I hate football," the younger man growled, Joly nodding in agreement.

"Same, but I bet you anything the rest of the guys are there."

"Not Enjolras."

"Grantaire bought him a ticket."

That alone made Combeferre smile. "Oh those two are so far gone it's sweet."

"Says the person engaged and with a kid on the way."

"Yeah, but Enjolras thinks football is boring. I never thought anyone would make him watch it, let alone go to a live match."

"And I never thought Eponine would ever agree to marriage with anyone," Joly retorted, smirking at his friend. Their good natured argument continued as they drank their coffees quickly, both mentally preparing themselves for the night which was to follow.

* * *

_"Stab wound victim at Hare and Hounds on Pimlico Road."_ The voice crackled as it came over the radio. _"Age 26, three wounds. Wounds described as to the abdomen and serious. Needs urgent attention. The computer says you're closest, are you free?"_

"Not for ten minutes," Combeferre replied, picking up his own radio. "If it's urgent, we won't be quick enough, got to get back to the hospital before we can set off again."

_"Okay, I'll leave you out of any messages for a few minutes then,"_ Cosette told him. She was only new, having only worked there two months, but was already the calmest and most organised emergency medical dispatcher the hospital had had for many years. Hearing the radio click off, Combeferre placed it back on the chair and turned back to face Joly and their patient, a young woman who'd got caught up in a fight between two drunkards and had been pushed down a steep flight of stone steps, possibly breaking her spine.

"No change yet," Joly informed him, just finishing his checks. "She'll live till we arrive."

"Bloody football," Combeferre muttered under his breath angrily. "She's too young for this."

"She is," Joly agreed calmly. "Now cool down and focus. We're only an hour into the shift, and I don't need you getting emotional right now."

Combeferre did as he was told. Joly was the senior paramedic in the ambulance which meant that technically, he was Combeferre's boss, and Combeferre never disobeyed an order.

* * *

The paramedics weren't the only ones to both hate football matches. Cosette had long since learnt to dread them, and this particular night was even worse, there being two matches on at the same time at opposite sides of the city.

Cosette had a kind and sweet personality, which made it easy for her to get on with everyone she met. The downside to this came with her job. For every call she took which resulted in a death she felt sorrow, and that would eventually take its toll on her naturally happy persona.

This particular call was no different. When the news came back that the stab victim was dead she couldn't help but sigh sadly, wishing uselessly that things could have ended differently.

When the light in front of her flashed once again she quickly pushed those feelings to one side, becoming professional once again as she clicked the button to answer the call.

"Littlewood Hospital. Please state the nature of the medical emergency." Cosette forcibly kept her voice as light as possible.

_"He... I... He..."_ The man's voice was rough and sounded like he'd either been drinking or crying, or possibly both.

"Calm down," Cosette ordered soothingly. "Where are you?"

_"With her,"_ the man mumbled. Cosette almost sighed, realising this was going to be one of the difficult calls.

"What's happened?" she asked instead. "Who needs an ambulance?"

She listened to the sound of his heavy breathing for a few moments, and was considering trying again when he took a deep breath and spoke. His voice was still rough but seemed more sure this time, as if he'd come to some kind of decision.

He had.

_"There will be a dead body in this graveyard,"_ he told her, making Cosette's blood run cold as she heard the words that followed, his voice so deadly calm all of a sudden, like he'd found peace._ "And it'll be mine."_ And with that, he hung up.

Cosette quickly started hitting keys to zone in on his location as she tried to phone back. When she only heard the dialtone she muttered something unprofessional under her breath and tried again. The second she got a location she checked for the nearest ambulance.

"'Ferre, tell me you're free," she said hurriedly, opening a radio channel.

_"What's the emergency this time?"_ Combeferre replied instantly. _"You're in luck, we just dropped a patient off."_

"Possibly suicide attempt," Cosette told him, adding on the location. "Hurry. I think he's been drinking, and he mentioned both a "he" and a "her"."

_"On our way."_

As Cosette tried once again to phone the man, she prayed they'd be in time.

* * *

Combeferre and Joly were both out of the ambulance the second it stopped, running towards the graveyard gates with medkit slung over Combeferre's shoulder, just in case. It was immediately obvious they were too late from the way the body next to one of the graves was slumped but they didn't turn round, both men dropping to their knees as they reached him.

"We need to turn him over," Joly said quietly, convinced he recognised the ink-dark curls but saying nothing, telling himself it was just his over-tired brain playing tricks on him.

When they saw the face, blood trickling down one side from the bullet hole in one temple, Combeferre froze, Joly spinning and throwing up in the bushes behind him. He'd worked at the hospital since he graduated and was a senior paramedic, capable of coolly and calmly dealing with any medical emergency or situation, but the sight of one of his best friends lying dead in the grass was too much for him to cope with.

"Grantaire..." Combeferre whispered, his voice trailing off slightly as he stared down at the artist who was dating his best friend, who had seemed so happy when he'd last seen him the day before - happy enough with life and love that he'd been carrying around a ring for the past two months, waiting for the perfect moment to propose. "Why?" His voice cracked on that one word, the one question Grantaire would never answer. Reaching over slowly, Combeferre pressed his trembling fingers to Grantaire's tear and blood stained face, closing his pale blue eyes for the last time. Rocking back onto his heels, he pulled out his radio slowly, clicking it on.

"Cosette, we're too late. He's... He's already..." Taking a deep breath, Combeferre forced himself to continue, though his voice shrank as he spoke. "He's already dead."

* * *

It only took one glance at Combeferre and Joly when they returned to the hospital for them to be ordered out of the ambulance and new paramedics assigned to it.

"You both need hot sweet tea," the nurse told them. "You look in shock so it'll help."

"Let us deal with this one man first," Combeferre practically pleaded. "It's the least I can do."

"He was our friend," Joly explained numbly, still deathly pale.

"Last job of the night," he relented finally, looking from one to the other. "Then staffroom and tea." They both nodded, neither capable of arguing.

It took everything both men had to get through the next half an hour. Combeferre filled in Grantaire's details down at the morgue, Joly simply leaning against the wall and closing his eyes in an futile attempt not to cry.

"We have to ring people," Combeferre murmured as they entered the lift. "We have to ring Enjolras." Joly shuddered at the thought of that.

"I need a cigarette," he mumbled, and even though Combeferre didn't smoke, he still followed him out of the main building. Pulling out his phone, he skimmed through his contacts until he reached his best friend.

"Odd," he said after a minute, moving his mobile away from his ear and looking at it. "He never lets his phone go unanswered."

"Maybe he had an argument with Grantaire and doesn't want to talk to anyone," Joly suggested tonelessly, staring off into the distance as his shaking hands struggled with his lighter, cigarette already dangling from his lips. Combeferre would normally have stepped in to help by now, but one glance at his own hands told him they weren't much steadier. "What do we do now?" Joly continued, still in the same toneless voice.

"I don't know," Combeferre admitted, sinking down onto a bench and resting his head in his hands. "I honestly don't know."

* * *

When Bahorel got Combeferre's text telling him to gather everyone at the hospital, it took him all of two minutes to ring all their friends.

"I'm guessing it's something to do with Eponine," he said to Feuilly as the pair left the seedy pub they'd found themselves in. The group had split up almost as soon as the match had ended, all going to different places to celebrate their home teams victory.

"Shame Enjolras and 'Taire aren't picking up," Feuilly sighed. "'Ponine was considering them as godfathers."

"Try again later," Bahorel shrugged. "This is those two after all. They'll be making out somewhere and not even noticing their phones going off. Or worse." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, making Feuilly laugh.

"Too true," he agreed.

* * *

By the time all of the friends had arrived Joly had smoked fifteen cigarettes and Combeferre's fingernails were history, but still they refused to speak. Joly curled up in Bossuet's side as soon as he sat on the bench next to him, and Combeferre had pulled Eponine down onto his lap, wrapping his arms round her tightly as best he could, but that was it.

"Okay, if Enjolras or Grantaire were going to pick up, they'd have done so by now," Bahorel pointed out, looking round their group of nine. "Just tell us whatever it is."

"Grantaire's dead," Combeferre said numbly, deciding that being blunt was probably the best option here. Bahorel instantly paled, regretting his previous words. Feuilly and Jehan simply stared at Combeferre, Bossuet glanced down at Joly worriedly, Eponine buried her face in Combeferre's shoulder, Marius let out a gasp and started crying silently, and Courfeyrac's mouth opened and closed noiselessly.

"But... how?" he managed finally, his voice coming out a strangled croak.

"Suicide," Combeferre explained softly, stroking Eponine's hair as he did so. "He... He shot himself. With Enjolras's gun." He glanced round the circle. "Does anyone have any idea why he would do this?"

"Enjolras might," Jehan suggested. "I don't know where he is though. No-one does."

"We need to find him," Combeferre muttered, dropping his face into his fiance's hair and breathing in deeply before continuing. "He needs to know."

* * *

Cosette had run through the hospital corridors as soon as she heard the name, searching for Combeferre. Her shift had just been ending when she'd left the call room and been greeted by a couple of passing nurses. The tail end of the conversation had been difficult to avoid overhearing as they disappeared off down the corridor, but one name and sentence in particular had filtered in. It was so distinctive that is was instantly recognisable, and so Cosette had simply turned and run.

"'Ferre!" she yelled when she left the hospital and saw him sitting on a bench with friends and a woman curled up on his lap. "'Ferre, it's your friend," she gasped, holding out her hand.

"Which one?" he replied instantly, Eponine slipping off his lap before he stood to follow Cosette back into the hospital. Unknown to both of them Marius was staring at Cosette in wonder. The tears still stained his cheeks and his grief was still strongly present, but the newcomer seemed to light everything up just by being there.

"Enjolras," Cosette said simply as they entered the building, alone once again.

When Combeferre realised where they were heading he paled.

"But it's Grantaire who's down here," he murmured automatically. "Not Enjolras, but his boyfriend. He was the suicide."

"It may not be the same Enjolras," she tried, hoping beyond all hopes that it wasn't. "It's just such a rare name, and I'd heard you talking about them, so I had to come find you. Just in case."

As the pair entered the morgue Javert, the morgue supervisor, was over. "Don't tell me there's another," he grumbled quietly.

"There's was someone came in earlier called Enjolras," Cosette told him. "Man in his twenties, a stab victim." Combeferre vaguely realised that whoever he was about to see was the emergency call they'd had to pass on to somebody else earlier, and he held his breath as Javert glanced down a list.

"Number 29," he murmured to himself, heading across the room and crouching to open the correct freezer. "Always has to be the ones at floor level." As he opened the body bag, Combeferre slowly followed him.

The second he saw the face, Combeferre was on his knees next to the body, the tears he couldn't stop from falling blurring his vision of the man who was practically his brother, the man he'd grown up with, whom he'd know for 24 years.

"No," he whimpered. "No no no no no."

Grantaire's death was painful enough, had cut into Combeferre's heart and mind, but Enjolras's had scooped his heart out almost completely. Slowly Cosette knelt down behind him, unsure of what to do but knowing she needed to do something. Combeferre had buried his face into his hands, sobbing helplessly, and Cosette simply rested her hand on his shoulder, offering her support as best she could.

It was well over twenty minutes before Combeferre was fit to move again.

"I have to tell everyone," he whispered.

"I will," Cosette offered instantly. "You need to get your fiance and go home. Sleep. I'll make sure things are taken care of here."

As much as Combeferre knew he should be the one telling his friends what had happened, he also knew there was no way he'd be able to make it through even the first few words without breaking down again.

"Cosette, you are an angel," he told her, sighing and kissing her forehead lightly. "Thank you."

* * *

The funeral morning dawned dark and stormy - a perfect day according to Bahorel.

"Grantaire always hated the sun, and I never once noticed Enjolras with a tan," he pointed out, trying to lighten the mood. "Besides, just look at their early relationship. Arguments every day if not twice a day. Yeah, this really is perfect for them."

Two days after the deaths, Combeferre had finally plucked up the nerve to read the reports for both his friends, locking himself in an office as he did so. The tale was simple enough, told through witness reports. Enjolras had been his usual self after the match, not knowing when to shut up and therefere ending up starting a bar fight, almost by mistake. Grantaire had been buying them both drinks at the moment the trouble started, and so hadn't been fast enough to reach Enjolras before the knife was sinking into his stomach, too deep and too many times and letting out so much blood each time that Enjolras's hands were bright red as they fluttered round the wounds. Grantaire's fist had connected with Enjolras's attacker's face the second he was close enough, sending him flying to the ground. The only thing stopping Grantaire from following and finishing him off was Enjolras's whispered, "Please." Grantaire had fallen to his knees, trying desperately to stop the bleeding as he screamed for someone, anyone, to call an ambulance. When the paramedics had arrived, Grantaire had only been able to choke out Enjolras's name before turning and staggering from the building, pulling away from anyone who tried to help him. Somehow, he'd known instinctively it was too late for the man he loved.

Grantaire's blood alcohol level told them that he'd had a lot to drink between leaving the pub and ending up in the park, Enjolras's pistol in his hand. No-one was really sure why he'd rung 999, but he had, and they all knew what had happened after that.

The funeral passed quickly, and soon enough they were standing in the cemetry, looking down at the newly carved gravestone.

"Why did he choose to die here?" Jehan asked quietly from where he was sat next to the stone, tracing the words lightly with his fingertips.

"It was his sister's grave that we found him at," Combeferre explained.

"He never did get over her dying," Courfeyrac sighed.

"And was never going to outlive Enjolras," Eponine agreed sadly.

Cosette stood near the back of the group, arm linked with Marius. The moment she'd seen Marius, when telling the rest of the group about Enjolras on That Night, she'd felt drawn to him, and it had only taken a few days for the pair to start dating. They'd been subdued and discrete though, out of respect for the dead friends Marius was still grieving for deeply.

"Where are we scattering the ashes?" Bossuet asked.

"By the river," Courfeyrac replied. "Where Grantaire used to paint."

"And Enjolras used to make speeches," Combeferre added on with a small smile.

"And Grantaire would paint Enjolras," Courfeyrac chuckled quietly.

"And chip in whenever he felt Enjolras was wrong, or being too idealistic." Combeferre sighed. "I never thought I'd say it, but I'm going to miss his cynicalness."

"They were two opposites and yet perfect for each other," Jehan said sadly, still studying their shared gravestone. "Like two sides of the same coin."

"And that's just how it should be," Feuilly declared. "The pair of them: together forever."


End file.
